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      August 13, 2013Pretty SureBarbara Schmitz

      I’m sure I heard
      the Pope say somewhere
      publicly,
      There is no Hell.
       
      But that’s like
      my hairstylist
      (whom we call
      The Queen) saying
      she read or someone
      read to her that humming
      is good for you.
       
      She can’t remember
      where she read it
      or had it read to her
      but she hums and
      sings along with
      the country western
      station as she snips and
      colors my “crowning glory.”
       
      It’s like knowing
      that cinnamon
      and sauerkraut are
      good for you
      but not remembering
      what they do.
       
      I did get to
      tell my mother
      before she died worrying
      about being punished
      in eternity, You did
      nothing wrong!
      So we hum and snip
      and munch along,
      pretty sure there’s
      no eternal sizzling
      waiting and just maybe
      somewhere
      something pleasant
       
      will arise from
      ethereal haze to surround
      our no tasting
      no hearing
      no touch souls
      when they glide
      to the other side
      buoyed up by one
      high note of sad music.

      Barbara Schmitz

      “At age 30 I decided if I wanted to be a writer I ought to do something about it—wrote occasionally on scraps of paper blowing about my house. So off I went to Naropa Institute to study with Allen Ginsberg. I ended up in a conference with Allen who looked through my notebook. He scratched his beard and asked, ‘Did ya write all this?’ I nodded, ‘Is that a lot?’ He affirmed that it was and added, ‘You should be reading.’ ‘Oh, I read a lot,’ I said. ‘NO! Giving readings. I’ll talk to Anne (Waldman).’ So at the next Naropa reading I was added to the roster and, all at once, I was a poet, reading with the Beats!”

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